NO GOING BACK

Malachy Keenan still has nightmares about the day a British soldier pointed a gun at him and threatened to pull the trigger.

The retired farmer, from Clontibret, Co Monaghan, recalled the dark days of The Troubles when the army would destroy roads along the border.

Now the 75-year-old fears Brexit could be the beginning of a new era of terror after more than two decades of peace.

Malachy told the Daily Mirror: “It was the 1980s. The British army was coming to blow up the road crossing the border. They would come the night before and hide in the bushes.

“The local farmers knew about it and we prepared to block the road to stop them. We just wanted to do our job and be able to cross the border.

“We lined the tractors up one-by-one. Every time we would move a bit they’d tell us we were going to be shot.

“One soldier fired into the butt of an ash tree in front of me and then he pointed the gun at me and said the next bullet is for you.

“I didn’t move any further and within a few minutes the BBC camera crews we had alerted arrived. The British soldiers ran away like dogs that had been kicked.

“This happened decades ago but it can’t go back to those days.”

VIOLENCE

As a no-deal Brexit looms, locals like Malachy on both sides of the 310-mile border are fearful not just for the economy but that the dark days of bombing and bullets could return.

Splinter groups within the IRA are itching to continue their old ways and security sources say they would attack any customs posts erected.

Shop owner Shannon Mcguigan has never experienced the violence of the past but is fearful for her future.

The 21-year-old runs a shop on a rural border road in Derrynoose, Co Armagh.

Her income relies heavily on passing lorry drivers who stop at Shannon’s for breakfast and dinner and she’s scared a hard crossing would result in her having to shut down.

She said: “I don’t know what will happen if checkpoints are set up right outside. I’m not going to have the footfall.

“The lorry drivers are the ones who help keep my shop going and it wouldn’t be worthwhile staying open if there were to be a hard border. The